Meet the cookies

I'm sure I got these somewhere off the internet years ago, but that's the circle of life I s'pose. Here is my now-famous sugar cookie recipe:

1 c. butter

2 c. sugar

2 eggs

½ c. milk

2 t. vanilla

4-5 c. flour

2 t. baking powder

¼ t. soda

½ t. salt

Mix together butter and sugar.  Add eggs, milk, and vanilla.  Beat until smooth.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Refrigerate  at least 2 hours.  If longer then place in plastic zip/lock bag.  Roll  and cut out.  Bake at 375º 8-10 min.  Cool and frost. 


My favorite frosting is made with cream cheese, powdered sugar, and milk. Go get 'em, tiger!


PS Does anyone know some tips for getting rid of blog spam, or as I like to call it, Splo-Bam?

A little late

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of Valentine’s Day. But that’s just because I’m old and bitter. But the secret—and I swear, nobody has figured this out—is that I actually love it. I LOVE it. In theory, anyway. And the good Saint V. has been good to me sometimes, including this year when I was able to find a package of puppy and kitty valentines for a dollar. This gets me thinking of other great Valentine’s Day happenings, thusly:

In elementary school, nothing demonstrates the classroom caste system better than Valentine’s Day. I remember painstakingly sorting my store-bought cards, figuring out which message was most appropriate for each of my classmates. “You’re cute, Valentine” could be socially devastating if it landed in the wrong hands. So I had the ‘friend’ types and the ‘slightly flirty, if you catch my drift’ types. I also did this with conversation hearts. Yes…I sorted individual pieces of candy. I even measured how much candy I would give someone, based on how much I liked them. Call me nerdy; call me OCD; even call me unnecessarily discriminatory, but when you know it’s all downhill after fourth grade, you do what you can to secure your place in childhood society.

As a friend, ok? JUST as a friend.

When I was younger, I was very careful about the types of cards I bought for the occasion. They needed to be cool, but not seem like I was trying to be cool. I would opt for a flower power theme (I was really into the 60s back then) or cards that used smart-sounding quotes (I was also really into thinking I was wicked smart back then). Heaven forbid I arrive late at the grocery and find only Little Mermaid or puppy/kitty cards to choose from. Those were for babies. My taste in cheap, thin-papered sentiment was very sophisticated for one so young. If there were ACDC or Metallica Valentine’s cards for sale in those days, I would have bought them. Ok, fine, I would buy them now too. In a heartbeat. Get it? Heart? Valentine’s Day?! BAM!

Then there was 6^th grade. In the absence of cool grocery store options, my best friend and I decided to make our boyfriends something for the special occasion. Jason, my sweetheart, received some sort of doily thing.
Lindsay did much better and made a large folding something for Trent. I was jealous. So was Jason. But the best part was Jason's card for me. It, too, was homemade. I can picture it so clearly: A red heart partially glued on the front to make a flap. Open the heart and you see this:
I love you

I love you

I love you

I love you

I love you

(eyeball) (heart) u

And on the inside? Something along these lines, in careful cursive handwriting:

Dear Stefanie,

I have really enjoyed going out with you. I will always love you.

Love,

Jason

I think of this now, and my heart goes pitter-pat. It really does. It’s just so cute, this naïve declaration of 12-year-old love. But back then? I was endowed with far too much self-awareness at that age, with irony and cynicism that overrode anything young and blissful about me. I recognized right then and there that this was sweet, but that he couldn’t possibly really love me because we were too young. LAME. I held onto the Valentine for awhile but then I threw it away out of embarrassment. My regrets in life are few, but that is one of them. Do you think he still loves me? I mean, he said "always," right? 

In junior high, all the girls would buy the flowers they sold at school for their best friends. And thus began the long-term coping strategy of substituting girl friends for boys in the absence of the latter. Where would girls be without girls?

One freak year in highschool I got roses from 2 different boys. That’s tough to beat.

Every year my mom makes my dad a giant (like, entire cookie sheet giant) heart-shaped cookie for the occasion. Don’t disappoint me this year with some silly diet, Mom! Anyway, this is a tradition I want to continue with my husband. (Please, please let me have a husband some day so I can make him a giant cookie. Amen.). I’m not sure why, but I love that so much. Something about the stability of the giant cookie warms my heart. Get it?!

Ok, enough of the past. Let’s talk about now. In Cupid’s name, I declare passionate love for the following:

Brandon Flowers of The Killers

The song “Cry To Me” by Solomon Burke

Heart-shaped stickers

My $5, deep-throat chair

The Halloween picture of Colby and Kara as a devil and an angel

Red hots

My bike

Those times when I can’t stop dancing and I go into another world

The sunny beach

Mail

My rooftop

Cooking--I love nothing more than an evening where I have the time to just be in the kitchen cooking something.

I also love (though not ‘passionately’ because that’s weird. Perhaps…’ardently’)

My family

My friends

My gospel

My country

My HB house

My capacity to love

Happy V-day, everybody. I hope you found your way to express it to those you love!

These things I love.

What do you think it says about me when the highlight of my day (week?) is when a grilled cheese truck shows up at work? A GRILLED CHEESE TRUCK!

I have no time for preparing meals, and in my bachelorettehood grilled cheese, quesadillas, cheese and crackers, and string cheese have all become staples in my diet. So imagine my delight when a truck made of grilled cheese parks itself outside. Yes, food from a truck is questionable. That's why it's so exciting!  !!
And these were not just any grilled cheese sandwiches--we're talking deluxe with an e. I ordered a cheddar and mac n' cheese sandwich. This means there's actual pasta in my sandwich. Unorthodox, yes. Delicious, yes.

I may have overdosed on cheese today. Yep.
But I think cheese is one of my 5 food items I would take on a desert island. The other 4?

--Nutella
--Jolley Time Kettle Corn
--Avocados
--Fish Tacos from Chronic Taco

Here are my 5 movies:
--Big Fish
--Stranger Than Fiction
--A dance movie....I can't decide. Step Up 2, Center Stage, or You Got Served
--Waiting For Guffman
--The BBC Pride and Prejudice (that's like 12 movies for the price of one, man)

Books:
--To Kill A Mockingbird
--The Hiding Place
--Kite Runner
--The Norton Shakespeare Anthology
--Los Scriptores

CDs
--Ray LaMontagne:
--Damien Rice: O
--An 80s compilation
--Eva Cassidy: Songbird
--The Killers: Sam's Town

The End.

PS I may or may not be losing my mind today.

The weekends....the weekends

I'm living a schizophrenic existence.
Weekdays = Dreary. Boring. Owned by The Man.
Weekends = Bliss.

Here's proof.
Me on a workday:


Me on the weekend:


Ok, so this weekend was superb. Brayden the Mighty Asian came to visit and...well...we get along great. This is us:





We hung out under here:


...which reminds me of this part in Baywatch where Hobie has his whole no-dialogue-bad-music-way-too-long scene with footage of him jetskiing and running shirtless and kissing a girl under a pier. Or maybe it was Saved By The Bell. Anyway, under the pier is hot.

We watched a progressively beautiful sunset:



And Brayden graciously offered to herd a bunch of birds my direction so I could pursue my wildlife photography career.
I think these are sandpipers, little baby ones. I like the big ones. I can watch them go all jack-hammer crazy in the sand for hours. I'm just waiting for one to strike oil, or, strike something hard and break off their skinny beaks. Gross.




He'll make a fine shephard some day.

So pretty much that's it for pictures. Blogging takes forever.

Other highlights:
--Delicious Japanese food, prepared by Brayden
--Sleeping in, sort of
--My first HB volleyball game!
--Chronic Taco
--Baby vegetables and mini cakes
--New basket for my bike. My bike! I forgot to get a picture of it!!! I will very soon.
--Dairy Queen. Don't ask me why, but Dairy Queen was my favorite part.

It was a good weekend. Thanks, Sir Brayden.

PS I had a lovely weekend with some of the girls last week, but failed to bust out the camera. If anybody provides me with pictures, I'll post those too!

Smitten Kitten

I was meant to be a cat.



All cats ask for is a spot in the sun, to be petted (not heavily), some independence, and baths only every so often. I want the same things. It’s so little to ask, really. I could take this analogy further, but I won’t…because I know it’s only cool to hate on cats. Suffice it to say that I find it easier to relate to the cat mentality than to that of, say, oxen.

The poor ox, beast of burden. He is stuck working his whole life, and for what? Oats? What the heck do oxen eat? And is there any other animal that gets an ‘en’ after it to make it plural? Point is, they do the same thing every day and it’s backbreaking, heartbreaking labor. Some would say “ah, but they’re beyond pity because they’re built for it. They’re made for that kind of work.” And that may be true. But therein lies my problem: I’m no ox. I’m not built for hard labor.

I like pretty things. While sometimes I credit myself with depth way beyond what is my due, when I’m honest I know that my interests only run about skin deep. For example, I’ve studied art--I know some stuff about why artists do the things they do, and what it all means and why we should care about it. Instead of caring about it, I roll my eyes. I am impressed by artwork I think is pretty. Pure and simple. If it’s nice to look at and I could look at it every day in my house, then I like it. I don’t care if it’s original Van Gogh, TJ Maxx clearance special, or back alley Stormin Norman. Same with music, lyrics, movies, speeches….people. Ha. Ok, not really people. Ahem. So. Here’s the key to any hope for my character: If it’s pretty, then I’ll think about it. Not always, but most of the time pretty things cause me to marvel at their prettiness and then either dig deeper to find out why they’re pretty or just let myself be filled with an intense desire to create pretty things or BE the pretty thing. I don’t move far beyond that, but at least I think about it.

This being the case, I’ve gravitated toward pretty careers. As my dad says, I draw the smiley faces on bombs used in the war. I love doing flowers, and I can’t really say it’s because I create the best looking arrangements or am uniquely gifted at it—often I just love being surrounded by beautiful flowers. But in the end, anything I’ve chosen that I try to make fit my enjoys-pretty-things mentality just becomes another job because I have to do it all day every day.

The real point of this randomness is that I’m not an ox. I’m really not. I’m not cut out for full-time work. I don’t know quite what I’m cut out for, but it’s not hard labor. I say hard labor because that’s what I feel this is. I’m not afraid of working hard—I’ve worked hard in school, I’ve worked hard at certain things I want, and I usually work hard at my jobs when I need to. I’m calling this—being stuck in an office, stuck in traffic, stuck depending on a paycheck that will never cover everything—hard labor. I’m not the career girl. I’m not an ox! I’m a cat! I’M A CAT!

I’ve alluded to this before, and I’m a little afraid of how intensely I’m feeling this currently. Call it a new job, call it stagnant career path, call it grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side, call it what you will. But I’m calling it quits with this whole career thing. I don’t care how pretty “design” is supposed to be. I’m marrying a rich philanthropist anthropologist (old money) and we’re traveling the world to look at pretty things. Then we’ll give people money so they can do whatever they want with it. Good plan, yeah?

The end of that diatribe. I'm long overdue for some pictures with my posts...but sadly I've taken none. Huntington is pretty. My weekends are the sublimest of sublime. So this weekend I'll get to the picture taking and leave the complaining behind! Huzzah! (In the meantime, enjoy these photos of delightful kitties doing what kitties do best)

Twas the week before Christmas...

....and I laid on the beach.

I think I made the right decision.

This post will self destruct in 5 seconds

Shhh...I'm really going to have to sensor myself here, because I work for a very important, top secret company and things I say may destroy you...and our country. But I feel like posting about my typical day here in "sunny" CA, and most of that day is used up by my employer.

5:00 am -- Wake up. What? This is even earlier than my clinically early parents.
5:45 -- Meet up with vanpool. This is a glorified bus and I have a free pass this week! Read scriptures with a head lamp while I eat dry cereal from a bag. Yum.
6:30 -- Arrive at war headquarters and settle in to my 1970s desk and chair. Begin work immediately for fear of being reported by a coworker for checking my email or yawning or something.
9:00 -- Blink. Realize I'm already hungry for lunch.
11:30 -- Decide lunch must happen. Wander downstairs amidst factory workers building jets (yes, literally building jets just yards away from me) and find a cafeteria. Eat. Lament the fact that California still has a winter and I haven't run far enough to escape feelings of coldness.
12:12 -- Back to work! Exactly 42 minutes for lunch or die.
2:00 -- Get slightly mocked by a coworker who points out that once again, I've used the wrong jet image in my layout. Weird that I've been there a week and I don't know that the current model has pointed wing tips instead of straight ones. Hold back sarcastic comments like "In Utah we don't have jets, so...my apologies."
2:15 -- Get caught singing "SAFETY DANCE" by another coworker. He's cool with it.
3:55 -- Freak out at my computer as I'm frantically trying to finish something in time to meet my vanpool.
4:05 -- Approach a disappointment-filled van and apologize for making them late on my first day. Feel like Dagwood in that stupid Blondie comic strip. Feel stupid for even remembering that character's name.
5:50 -- Arrive at home. Eat carrots. Talk on the phone. Do forbidden things on the computer like check email, blog, listen to music.
6:00 -- Wonder if I should be pursuing a social life.
6:01 -- Give up and watch something on Hulu.
9:00 -- Get ready for bed.
9:30 -- Lights out. Rinse and repeat.

It's a formidable schedule. BUT...I get Friday off, so we'll see if it's all worth it.
All that said, things are coming along nicely. I'm getting used to things I can't control, and despite my cynicism, I've been laughing a lot in the last week. When I try to swipe my badge to enter some area I've never been and the gate blocks me anyway--NO CLEARANCE!--I laugh. When I spot the most magnificent, unique mullet I've ever seen--tiny braids that curl under for the top layer, frizzy braid/dreads for the long, straight bottom layer--I laugh. When my coworker tells me a Mormon he knows is a Jack Mormon because he drinks Coke, I laugh. It's a good time.

I will post soon about my weekend. It was top notch!